First Weber Group REALTORS®: Wisconsin Real Estate

Read the complete upbeat article here from Realtor.org.  Hip Hip Horray, the National Association of REALTORS Chief Economist Lawence Yun sees sales and prices rising in late 2008 and getting even stronger into 2009.  He also sees the declime of subprime lending practices which has caused problems for so many.

Prices should also turn around but will vary by market.  Predicted good news for most areas are shown below.  While Milwaukee and other midwest cities have been lucky to not have huge real estate decreases, again, when the turn around comes, we are expected to see very respectable gains in the 20-30% range! More volitile markets may rebound even more dramatically.

"Middle-America cities that performed evenly over the past few years – like Cincinnati, Milwaukee and the Kansas City, Mo., area – are likely to experience home price gains in the 20 to 30 percent range over the next five years, while markets like Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix could see prices go up as much as 50 percent during that time period, Yun said."

So the message is NOW is a time of opportunity! Buy when the buying is good.  Real estate is cyclical, buyers markets last only so long. It looks like we are nearing the end of the current market dip.  Buy Low... hold for a decent amount of time, and sell high!

We are ready to help.  Sign up for a My First Weber account to get emails of new listings matching your criteria now or just let us know you are ready to make a move. Comments always welcome. If you like being updated on the Wisconsin real estate market, sign up for our RSS feed.

The real estate market peaked in 2004 and 2005 in the Northwoods as well as other areas of the country.  2005 was the record for number of sales and 2004 was the record for the highest median price for homes in Lincoln, Oneida and Vilas Counties.  Wisconsin home sales dropped 24% the first quarter of 2008 compared to 2007. However, the severe weather  played a big part in this decrease.  Much of Southern Wisconsin  received as much as 3 times their normal snow fall. When spring did finally arrive in the Northwoods the market picked up substantially.  Buyers are still in the drivers seat and sellers that have their properties in the best condition and at the best price are receiving offers the first weeks  on the market .

Mortgage rates are still hovering around 6%.  But the days of “stated income” and C paper loans are over. Buyers need to have good credit scores and be able to document their incomes in order to get a loan.

There is still a large inventory of foreclosed properties on the market and some good deals to be had. Unfortunately many of these homes are in very poor condition and buyers need to beware.

The recreational home market is still healthy . Baby boomers continue to buy lake homes and cottages and have a good inventory of properties to choose from.  But in the end price is king and overpriced properties will continue to linger on the market while properties priced competitively will sell.

 Sandy Ebben, Vice President, First Weber Group

What is the FHA and how could it help me buy property?

The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) provides insurance on loans made by FHA approved lenders. FHA is the largest insurer of mortgages in the world.  At a time when mortgages are harder to get, why not look at an FHA loan?  These loans typically have a lower interest rate, more flexibility in calculating payment ratios and may enable less money down too.

The FHA loan limits have been raised nationwide recently - What may have been considered a "lower income" type loan at one time is not anymore. Borrowers in the Milwaukee area, for example, can borrow up to $315,000 through 2008. These types of loans are replacing the risky subprime ones that contributed to the recent mortgage meltdown.   

If you are looking for a house, ask your agent or lender about FHA loans. 

The raised leding limits, as of this time at least, are only available through the end of 2008.  Yet another reason to get the "buy a property" ball rolling now.

Click here for information off the HUD/FHA website.

Just looking at the blogs statistics and April was a really great month for traffic! Over 3500 unique visitors. Some people type in blog.firstweber.com to reach us and some find us when they are conducting a web search on say, google.

A few people found our blog when they searched for "how up to date are realty listings?"  Well, we can't speak for every sitebut I can tell you about firstweber.com.

Our listings and participating co-broke listings are downloaded from 5 Multiple Listing Services at least once daily.  Our offices work throughout the day to update our own considerable amount of listings and First Weber listings are updated in real time.  We rely on the Multiple Listing Services for the data that populates our site for cooperating broker listings.  The MLS has rules that agents need to follow and fines if they don't.  So, the answer is a nutshell is listings at firstweber.com are updated daily, based on MLS information. 

Information on other sites, especially ones based on print advertising, can become outdated very quickly.  In these situations, information is entered into an ad publishing system which creates the magazine/ad and the same information is put on a website for 30 days or so.  That means the info is 30 days old.  When possible, go to a local real estate source for the most accurate information.